File image of President William Ruto.
Nyando Member of Parliament Jared Okello has accused President William Ruto of manipulating the bipartisan talks between the Azimio la Umoja and Kenya Kwanza coalitions.
Speaking on Thursday July 6 during Citizen TV’s Daybreak show, Okello said that the bipartisan talks have been hampered by “despots” who have stymied the efforts to reach an agreement between the two sides.
“Despots never want dialogue, and we have seen it happen here but I said a time has come that Kenyans must bring them on the dialogue table and it will have to happen whether they want to run away from it or not,” said Okello.
He added, “When they batched the seven-member panel from either party we thought that these were independent minds who were going to prosecute matters before them independently and objectively, my friend Khalwale has just told us that the wing of that divide is remote-controlled by one William Samoei Ruto from state house no wonder we are not moving.”
The ODM MP also addressed the issue of opening the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) servers, which he said is a key in the bipartisan talks, noting that the Azimio selection panel has constitutional rights to demand the servers.
Okello claimed that the IEBC’s refusal to release information on the servers was a violation of Article 35 of the Constitution, which states that citizens have the right to inquire about data held by the state for a period of three years.
The Azimio coalition on June 27 announced its exit bipartisan talks even after being invited for negotiations by their Kenya Kwanza counterparts.
Former Defense CS Eugene Wamalwa made the announcement adding that the decision to call off the talks was part of declarations the party has made as it plans to embark on a “campaign of civil disobedience including refusal to pay taxes”.
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